Dying to Self

“Are We Really Being Used to Change People?”

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Are we really being used to change people?

—Billy Graham (Christianity Today Online,  "A Greater Vision," 10/24/06)

Billy Graham, modern Evangelicalism's elder statesman, poses a legitimate question. Since that article debuted a month ago, the question's tugged at my heart.

We talk about the Kingdom of God a lot in Evangelical circles, but sometimes I feel we're missing the point. In some ways, we live out the Faith like the kid who has a celebrity run-in with Brad Pitt and thereafter insists to awed friends that he's now a lifelong pal. Elderly ladyA simple phone call to Mr. Pitt would dispel all pretenses, but it sounds good. And who's got that phone number lying around anyway?

Any blogger worth his or her salt will instantly chime in and remind us that "we" don't change anyone, God does. No arguments there. But God decided to work His will through earthen vessels. Jesus' prayer that God would raise up laborers to go into the fields wasn't a call for the angels to get off their duffs.

As we go into the Christmas season, hundreds of opportunities will come for us to answer Graham's question in the affirmative. If we keep it in mind through every daily personal interaction, how can we not begin living out a transforming faith?

But it doesn't come naturally. We need to work at viewing every interaction we have with other people as an opportunity for the Kingdom or against it. At a time of the year when jerkdom abounds, swallowing our inner jerk after standing in line for a half hour to return a misbought gift would go far in showing the poor person on the opposite side of the counter that our lives run counter to the ways of the world. If I had a dime for every Ichthus-bumper-stickered car driven by some guy who just verbally assaulted a pony-tailed teen girl working in the least-desired spot in the store, I'd be well on the way to Warren Buffet-dom.

Christmas naturally opens people to Christ. Does your server at the restaurant know the Lord? How can you serve him while he's serving you? Or how about watching the kids for the single mom you know so she can shop for her kids? Offer to drive an elderly person to the mall so she can shop, too. And while you're at it, buy her lunch.

The possibilities are endless if your heart inclines to the sheep not yet in Christ's fold. 

The Plagiarism Trap

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One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up and said to him, “Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who it is that gave you this authority.” He answered them, “I also will ask you a question. Now tell me, Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?” And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From man,’ all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.” So they answered that they did not know where it came from. And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
—Luke 20:1-8 ESV

Last week, The Wall Street Journal—my personal newspaper of record—ran a front page article discussing the issue of plagiarizing sermons (“That Sermon You Heard on Sunday May Be From the Web“). Some churches and pastors think nothing of using a message already delivered, while others grow livid at the very idea. I’ve followed the issue across several blogs (Challies.com had the most extensive discussion), but it appears to me, now that the dust has settled, that the discussion danced around core issues no one confronted.

Ultimately, the issue of plagiarizing sermons sets multiple traps.

Consider the Luke passage above. Jesus sets up a fork for the Jewish leaders, forcing them down two roads, neither of which they wish to commit to.

To discuss plagiarizing sermons, we must begin with the ultimate source of a sermon message: Does our preaching ultimately have its source in men or in God? 

The Bible makes it crystal clear that our preaching comes from God:

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

…

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
—1 Corinthians 2:1-5, 12-16 ESV

Plagiarism argues the source of the words is wronged by their taking and should seek redress. It also states the plagiarizer deceitfully passes off the words he speaks as his own.

But if anyone reading now can make a case that anything you or I own has its final source not in God, but humankind, I’d love to hear that argument!

This brings us to the other fork. If we don’t fully believe that God is the one who owns the words that come out of a preacher’s mouth, then those words are merely words of clever men. If that’s the case, then God have mercy on us because we’ve removed Christ from our preaching. Evangelist Billy SundayThe Jewish leaders fell into this problem with the source of John’s baptism, and we merely repeat it.

The converse of this is that an avowed atheist could stand up in a church pulpit and read from the Bible with an actor’s passion, yet would anyone define that as pastoral preaching of the word, especially by the standard some insisting upon in their attacks on sermon plagiarism?

When we discuss this issue, this is the major dilemma we face. We can get all riled up about preaching the word, but then we shoot ourselves by insisting that somehow we’re the true source of that word.

But we aren’t.

Here’s what truly makes me shake my head: The people arguing most fiercely for punishing plagiarism are the same folks who uphold a high view of preaching. Yet by their very arguments, if they make a claim on a message, they strip out God and ascribe it to men. If they insist they’re not doing that, then they agree that God is still speaking.

God is still speaking? Wow, that sounds a lot like what those nutty charismatics believe! Yet you’d be hardpressed to get many of the folks who would argue that sermons aren’t messages that originate solely with men to buy that logical outcome.

If the primary issue here comes down to whether or not the Gospel is preached, does it matter if the person delivering the message was the first person to deliver it? If we humans can’t improve on the Scriptures already delivered to us, then what is being added to an exposition of those Scriptures that makes it rooted to one church on one Sunday, delivered by one human being?

Many argue against re-using a message, but that’s illogical if the message is inspired by God. Did the sermon get preached once and then no longer apply anywhere? Does God’s message return void after it’s been spoken once? It seems the same people who are arguing for stringing up plagiarizers hold a pretty low view of the Gospel, if they believe it only has a specific rendering to one set of people at one time and one place.

What’s worse is the logic that traps them—again. If the message were that specific to only one group of people, then it takes on a prophetic utterance that calls the closed canon of Scripture into question. (At least by their own arguments against an open canon, it would.)

One of the arguments against one person using a sermon delivered by another plays up the pastoral component. Aren’t we paying our pastors to preach the word?

The trap here wonders at what point a sermon no longer becomes relevant because someone else preached it previously. Isn’t a sermon someone else preached still the the word if God is behind it?

What about giving credit to the originator of the message? Well, isn’t the originator God? If you take a look at the sermons delivered in Acts, they bear an uncanny resemblance to each other, laying out God’s redemptive plan in a similar way, yet no one ascribed any authorship to anyone else.

Traps, traps, traps no matter where one turns if one pursues the plagiarism punishment angle.

Perhaps the better case is to forget making the use of someone else’s sermon a crime in the Church, ascribed or not.

What if we did? What if all we’ve done by stigmatizing the corporate use of preaching the word is to merely lift up the reputation of some preachers over others? I don’t think we ever consider that reality. Do we rate a minister of the Gospel solely by his talent for preaching? If so, many solid Christian men would be disqualified from the ministry. If we believe that preaching the word is a true spiritual gift, then every pastor in this country has that gift. Does anyone reading this believe that? One hundred percent? All the time? If not, then shouldn’t those pastors who may not have that supernatural gift operating at all times have access to the messages of those men who do have it?

Personally, I find the selling of sermons more reprehensible than any supposed plagiarism, especially because I believe God inspires those messages we hear. If it’s only to recover the cost of distribution, I can see some justification for that. Even then, freely we have received, so freely we give.

I offer all this as food for thought. I’m not fully decided on this issue myself. What bothers me is our failure to frame our terms correctly and to get to their roots. Unless we do that, we fall into worthless arguments based on the laws of men and not on the truths of God.

I’ve read all the arguments upholding the idea of punishing plagiarism of sermons, yet if followed to their natural conclusions they always lead to the same trap: the exaltation of men over God. John Piper (who’s written on plagiarism himself) wrote a book with the title Brothers, We Are Not Professionals. But don’t we act like professionals when we get defensive on this topic of plagiarism? Doesn’t it seem like we’re protecting a celebrity status for pastors by arguing for the punishment of “plagiarizers”? We may insist that using a message preached elsewhere is deceitful, but perhaps the entire premise is flawed. As I’ve laid out here, the reasons we may consider it deceitful may have more to do with the self-glorying of men than God’s honor.

Paul said that the important thing was not whether Christ was preached for envious reasons, just that the message of Christ got out (Phil. 1:15-18). If we keep that in mind, isn’t everything else spurious?

{Image: Evangelist Billy Sunday, whose own ministry was rocked by accusations of plagiarism}

Jesus Christ, Lord of Empathy

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Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
—Romans 12:15 ESV

I buried my parents four months apart. Losing any parent hits too close to home, but losing them so close together only amplifies the grief.

Recently, I heard that someone we know, a person much younger than me, lost parents close together. Sitting here now, that kind of grief rises up again. I know exactly how that person feels. You’re cut loose. The world seems emptier and disconnected. I know that feeling because I’ve been there.

As I mature in the Lord, I realize that no one gets a pass. You can’t walk around this planet long before you experience death, illness, betrayal, loss, and a host of other pains. Like ticks, painful realities cling to us and sap our vital energies. A sheep so afflicted can’t remove the tick on its own.

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
—Matthew 9:35-38 ESV

We Evangelicals can’t cede the humanity of Jesus Christ to the mainline churches. We do a fine job of making Jesus the Christ, the Lord of All, but we tend to forget Jesus gave up His place beside the Father to take on flesh and the subsequent misery of the helpless sheep He came to save.

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, [Jesus] himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
—Hebrews 2:14-18 ESV

We don’t hear too much about Jesus our Brother in Evangelical circles, an incalculable loss. Jesus’ humanity drew people. They knew they could approach Him. He wasn’t distant and removed, but walked among us, giving His life away, serving others.

He did this because at the core of who He was beat a heart of empathy. The very act of incarnation forever linked the Son of God with the people He created. Incarnation embodies empathy for others. And Jesus not only displayed that empathy by taking on flesh, but by fully becoming one of us, emotions and all:

Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
—John 11:32-36 ESV

For those of us who bear the image of Christ, empathy for our fellow men—be they believers or not—should permeate the core of who we are. Jesus felt Mary and Martha’s loss. The loss of a friend drove Him to tears. Even though He fully understood He could raise Lazarus from the dead, Jesus still showed empathy. His lesson? No one, not even the Christ, should ever walk away from another’s pain.

People who call themselves Christians, but who so readily tear into another person, display little of Christ’s empathy. Our lives should always be lived with one eye on what it means to be someone else. Ultimately, Jesus, the Lord of the Universe, did the same by becoming a man.

His empathy compels us to treat a man as if you or I were in his shoes. That empathy drives The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you (Luke 6:31 rephrasing). Only then can we humbly dispense grace to those who so desperately need it.

Lastly, the empathetic nature of God shows in one final verse:

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
—1 John 4:19-21 ESV

Empathy

Empathy for others proves itself when we say we love God, and vice versa. The relationship between our love of God and our love for others cannot be severed, for empathy drives it.

As we roll into Thanksgiving and Christmas, step into someone else’s life. This isn’t a call to overlook sin and how it leads to the shattered lives of people around us, only that we show empathy first. You and I have no idea what kind of living hell a person’s been through. Better that we empathize with him or her first because we ourselves went through our own hell. Without Christ we’d all still be living that hell right now. Lead with that empathetic love. Feel someone else’s pain and truly mean it.

Christ felt ours all the way to the cross.